CRESSKILL — Construction began Monday on a new early-childhood center that will welcome kindergartners and preschoolers in 2020.

The center is part of $12.5 million project approved in a referendum in September 2017 to deal with a growing student population in the district. It is being built as an addition to Edward H. Bryan Elementary School on Brookside Avenue, with a completion date of February 2020.

The project will cost taxpayers $13.75 a month over a 30-year period, given the borough's average home assessment of $600,000. About 25 percent of the project, or $3 million, will be covered by debt service aid.

The new center will have six classrooms for kindergarten and two preschool classes. Michael Burke, Cresskill's superintendent of schools, said it will hold 125 students, which will allow for each class to have no more than 16 to 18 students.

The student population will hit about 2,000 in the next two to three years before it levels off, district data show. Five classrooms in Merritt Memorial School and Bryan Elementary School are now being used for kindergarten. Two classrooms in Cresskill Middle/High School are being used for preschool classes until the new center is built.

"Our high school has a nine-period day, so if it frees up one classroom in a nine-period day, that brings it to nine classes. So with two preschool classes moving out, you will have 18 class spaces open," Burke said.

Cresskill school board members and the district's superintendent were present Friday for a groundbreaking for a new early childhood center.(Photo: Ricardo Kaulessar/NorthJersey.com)

Construction is starting two months later than originally slated. Burke said that was because the second of two homes adjacent to the elementary school has been finally vacated by its owner, allowing for demolition of that house, also on Monday. The center's parking lot will be built on the site of that house.

Denise Villani, president of the Cresskill Board of Education, said she is happy to see the project finally getting off the ground after several years of discussion about crowding in the school district.

"We have waited a long time for this day. We're very excited that it's finally here," Villani said. "It will reduce the class sizes in the elementary schools, which is the goal of this project, and even out the playing field."

Rodney Watkins, senior project manager for Wayne-based Dicara Rubino Architects, said each classroom in the new center will have a bathroom. There will be a nurse's suite with an examination room, and a corridor connecting the center to the elementary school. He said a new playground will be built behind the elementary school to replace one that was torn down to make way for the corridor.

As part of the overall project, an elevator is being installed in the elementary school to make it ADA-compliant, new roofs were put on the elementary school and Merritt Memorial, a middle school, a few months ago, and new windows were installed for the schools. Construction is being done by Bennett Construction.